Fifty-four Republicans broke ranks with Boehner, leaving him suddenly dependent on Democrats to win House approval of a must-pass three-week spending bill to keep the government operating past Friday. Tea-party-backed freshmen contributed to the embarrassment, but an equal force was a set of more veteran conservatives — some with their own political agenda but also more willing to risk an immediate fight with the White House.

“I think we have to have a fight. I think this is the moment,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told POLITICO prior to the vote. “Things don’t change around here until they have to, and Republicans ought to draw a line in the sand.”

Leadership aides would argue later that Republican losses piled up more at the end once passage was assured. But the bottom line is the 85 Democratic “yea” votes saved the speaker’s bill. And Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had made a powerful appeal to his colleagues at a morning caucus, saying Republicans must stand together to strengthen their hand in budget talks with Senate Democrats and Obama.

Indeed, the Republicans have gone to great pains to sideline House Democrats, and with them, Boehner’s predecessor, former speaker and current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). The GOP’s strong preference is to keep the focus on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as a willing partner for Boehner and favorite punching bag for Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), whose press operation seems to specialize in daily attacks on the sometimes erratic 71-year-old Democratic leader.

…snip…

“It does show a major problem. We should be at the table,” House Appropriations Committee ranking Democrat Norm Dicks of Washington told POLITICO.

“But for the House Democrats, this would not have carried,” South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn added in a brief interview. A member of his party’s leadership and former whip when Democrats were in the majority, Clyburn said Boehner must “get the adults on his side married up with the adults on our side and get this done.”

Reid told reporters he expected to move quickly to the short-term bill, which would give the two sides until April 8 to work out a larger agreement on spending for the remaining six months of the fiscal year.

13 responses to “It used to be his party, and he’ll cry if he wants to.”

Man, I go AWOL for a couple days (okay, months) and everything gets all updated and twitterfied (i know, a bit ironic coming from a Kosbuster)!

Anyway, back to topic. The only pleasure i get from C-SPAN anymore is watching TanMan wriggle through the Tea Party know-nothings and trying to strike up “I always really liked you” conversations with Blue Dogs and near Blue Dogs like my rep.

The rest is getting too painful. 24 months of destructive fake culture warfare to distract from the real class warfare he and his Brownshirt Governor buddies are waging.

jeez, geez, it’s not like you haven’t commented since march 31st of last year or anything. i mean, who’s keeping track? 😛

it’s about damned time you put in an appearance. i thought you didn’t love me anymore. 😥

i think it’s hilarious that bronzo the clown can’t keep his troops together. i don’t think he has any friends in the house. the teabaggers want to get rid of him, and widdle ewic cantaw can’t wait for bronzo’s demise (metaphorically speaking, of course) so he can take over the leadership. is it any wonder why bronzo is always weeping?

I hate that these douchebags play chicken with the budget. There are people who count on unemployment, Medicare, food stamps to feed their kids & elders totally reliant on the government to be functional so they can pay rent & get meds & essentials. These hucksters are willing to gamble & let it shut down as a political move because it does not personally effect their lives.

Back in the post Lincoln era they got into this sort of malaise. A climate of graft and patronage led to know nothings, mugwumps, and the stalwarts. This all came to a dramatic climax with a crazed guman running up and shooting dead President Garfield yelling “I am a stalwart, Chester Allan Arthur is president now!” This broke the cycle but Chester could not get the nomination on the next campaign because he was considered an honest man. But jump to these modern times and now everyone of them want to be a gauleiter with eco-warlord overtones. Now when things really fall apart, we will need the follow-up hit “And now it’s Boners turn to cry….”

“Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had made a powerful appeal to his colleagues at a morning caucus, saying Republicans must stand together to strengthen their hand in budget talks with Senate Democrats and Obama.”

Would you believe this guy ran unopposed last year? #3 Republican in the House and no one bothered to take him on. A friend of mine who lives in the district is so irritated about this that he’s thinking seriously of running as an independent. I used to live in this guy’s district. If I still lived there, I’d run as a Democrat!

i didn’t know he ran unopposed. is he really that popular or would any dem be a threat to him? wiki says his seat in the state assembly was held by a rethug before him and after he went to the u.s. congress. is that area pretty safe for rethugs?

When I lived in Bakersfield (It’s not the end of the world, but you can sure see it from there) almost 30 years ago, it was a wild but still pretty conservative place. Oil and real estate boom towns are like that. From all I’ve heard and read since then, it’s become even more conservative, so it’s a pretty safe place for Republicans. Even so, the idea that the local Democratic party won’t even bother to recruit some Democratic mayor or county supervisor who isn’t up for re-election that same year to run against him as a sacrificial lamb who might get some name recognition out of it is something I find galling. That almost happened here in Michigan, when Mike Rogers in MI-08 would have run unopposed except that Lance Enderle ran a write-in campaign to get the Democratic nomination. There was no chance he would win, but he did force Rogers to spend money on his own campaign instead of distributing it to other Republicans. It served a useful purpose even in defeat.